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Anisoprinted drone frame

Nowadays, applications for drones are unlimited: surveying, video recording, agriculture, dropping supplies in hard-to-reach locations, monitoring, and much more.

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Tsuru Robotics, an international R&D bureau focused on deep tech full-stack robotics and drone development, turned to anisoprinting for reducing the weight of drones and increasing the rigidity of the entire structure. It is necessary to lower the weight of the entire vehicle to 250 grams: the EU legislation for UAVs under 250 grams does not require reporting and registering the routes, which may be complicated for groups of dozens of drones performing an airshow. Also, it extends operation time by saving battery life.

3D printed with continuous fiber reinforcement

The old frame consisted of printed components, aluminum parts, and carbon tubing. It had several drawbacks:

Such design requires additional logistical effort.
It is not rigid enough, thereby reduces control precision due to vibrations and resonance.
Increases the requirements for electronic components and software.
It also has a significant weight: 32 grams.

The new frame has an optimized shape defined with topology optimization algorithms, which prevents resonance due to its rigidity. The cost of manufacturing was also considered during the whole design process using Aura slicer. Aura prepares a 3D model, generates reinforcing fiber trajectories in each layer and allows to adjust reinforcement scheme to obtain strong and lightweight parts.

Screenshots of different layers from Aura. Blue: reinforcement fiber paths, green: plastic infill, yellow: supports.

The frame is reinforced with a grid of maximum possible density, it helps to keep the carbon fiber volume as high as 22% while the surface remains smooth and beautiful.

With the possibility of changing prototype anytime without extra spendings, the team reduced of 40% the manufacturing costs in comparison to milling, which requires significantly more efforts to redesign part.

3d printed drone frame with continuous carbon fiber reinforcement

43% lighter, 48% cheaper, 16% more rigidity

The stiffness of the frame has increased by 16.4% compared to the original, the cost lowered by 48%, and the weight is 43% less. All these improvements help to eliminate or at least mitigate the issues listed for the old design: all of them serve to ergonomically apply the new part with the maximum benefit.